Fighting, Anaya Phoenix [best affordable ebook reader .TXT] 📗

so that she was on my side. Her arm went around me and I leaned into her warmth, taking in deep breaths of earth and cinnamon.

“I didn’t mean to get in the middle, it wasn’t my fault!” I sobbed into her side and she quieted me, smoothing my hair down.

“We know, Matt’s the worst and Ander isn’t much better.” I nodded even though I knew they were both equally the worst.

“They were friends!”

“Barely.”

“How was I supposed to know he would get attached?”

“Because he’s a lycan, honey. They all get entirely too attached too soon.” Blake soothed softly and I cleared my face before sitting up and looking at Rhonda who had wiped all emotion from her face.

“Oh you cow! Don’t feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t lie either, you’re making it stink in here.”

“I’m not!”

“Gross!”

“Children, please.” Blake barked out and we all sat in silence before laughing. I had missed them so much, I didn’t have any wolf friends that weren’t, in some way, family. These people were the only, honest to goddess, friends that I had that were furry.

“Thank you for not blaming me, you’re the only ones that don’t that know the whole story.” They looked to each other before looking at me.

“We don’t know the whole story. Matt refused to talk about it and would always silence Lisa whenever she tried to tell us. I’m pretty sure he ‘alpha’-d her so she couldn’t actually tell us.” I took a deep breath and crossed my legs, settling in to dig up the past.

** 6 years ago***

                I laughed and looked up at the stars, the moon wasn’t out tonight. It was one of those nights where the stars lit up the sky and you could see the absolute beauty of it. Matt kept tickling me, hitting the same spot over and over again until I was a ball of laughter, then doing it some more. I sat up and leaned on my arm, staring at him in humor as he tried to look everywhere else but where I was.

“I said stop! You lured me out here to stargaze, now you’re doing nothing but torturing me!”

“But you look so cute when you’re tortured.” 

“I’ll try not to take that in a creepy way Matty.”

“Why does everyone call me that?”

“Because it’s easier than Matt.”

“There’s one more letter in it!”

“I didn’t make up the English language Matty, take it up with Shakespeare!” He sat up then, looking at me and smiling a big smile.

“Do you honestly think that Shakespeare made the English language? That he was just bored and was like ‘Oh what the hell, here’s all of the words in the world?’”

“How the hell would I know?” My face flamed and I stood up, having enough of him teasing me. He laughed and stood too, grabbing my wrist and pulling me closer. We were around the same height then, I only had to look up a little to meet his eyes. He snaked one arm around my waist and pulled me in until I was pressed tight against him, but kept hold of my wrist.

“I’m sorry, don’t be offended.”

“I’m not offended, just sick of your shit Matty. As I’m sure all of us are.” I smiled gently and looked into his eyes. They were such a pretty color, so brown. Like chocolate.

“Please, you all love me. Especially Andy.” I laughed at that and shook my head, bringing my hands up to push him away.

“He tolerates you, at most.” They were best friends, but ones that build their friendship on their initial hatred. It was a pretty delicate friendship, the type that would shake easily if the foundation rocked a little bit.

“And what about you Luna?” I crinkled my brow and looked at him, putting my hands on his chest.

“What do you mean, what about me?”

“Do you tolerate me, Little Luna?”

“Oh, Matty, I thought you knew what we were.” My voice is so soft, I don’t want to ruin this. I know to be gentle, but the situation is enough to shake anyone.

“Thank Goddess.” I watched as his face got close, but I was stuck, I couldn’t move. I didn’t know if I wanted to or not. His lips landed on mine and, in an act of pure instinct, I opened my mouth and kissed him back. Before the kiss could go anywhere else a truck rammed into us. He tightened his grip on me, but we still tumbled through the dirt. I groaned and pushed him away, standing and turning to the attacker. Ander stood there, breathing hard and his wolf so close to losing it stared at both of us.

“What the fuck Ander?” Matt growled and stood, he seemed taller now that his beast was out but I wasn’t paying attention. I kept my eyes on Ander and made my body relax.

“You could’ve seriously hurt her!” Matt yelled and I groaned internally before stepping in front of him.

“Ander, it was nothing.”

“Nothing?” Matt asked, his voice sounded hurt but I wouldn’t risk looking behind me.

“Nothing.” Ander stared at me and slowly his breathing calmed down.

“That wasn’t nothing, Luna. You kissed me back, there was something there.” With a snarl I’d never heard from him Ander charged, changing into his wolf.

“No!” I screamed spreading my hands out to protect Matt who just pushed me aside and shifted. The difference between werewolf and lycan is that lycan’s are bigger. They stand on their hind legs, and function more like humans. They are the true splice of wolf and man. Even though Matt was a kid, he was an alpha so he was bigger. Between him and Ander there was about 800 pounds of dog.  Running between them, I knew it would be dangerous. I didn’t want there to be fighting and there was only one way I knew to end it. I waited until both of them were going to strike and ran in between them, ignoring the pain and just standing there. The scream that left my mouth was one full of anguish and enough that my father heard it. They both backed up once they smelled and tasted my blood. I fell forward, not willing to get dirt in the deep gash and bite mark on my back. That just meant I would have to clean it, which I was not for. It took two days to heal and a bunch of magick. You don’t easily walk away from wounds inflicted by werewolves, and it was damn near impossible to be ok after being attacked by a lycan. Ander never left my side but he also never said anything. I could feel everything he felt, even back then. On the second day, when it was close to being completely healed, Matt and everybody were on the right side of my bed. Ander looked down and away from him, not because of a power thing but because the rage that was inside of him would’ve spilled out if he looked at Matt. Matt sat next to me and slowly reached for my hand, holding it gently. His hands shook a little and I looked at him. I shook my head softly and smiled at him, showing him it was OK. I knew everybody sensed something was off with the three of us, knew that they felt the rage from Ander and the awkwardness from Matt and I.

“We’re going back to the territory. I don’t think we should stay here.” His eyes flitted to Ander and I felt the blood leave my face.

“You-you’re going to leave?” My voice was so tiny, so scared and vulnerable. They were my only friends. He nodded and squeezed my hand making me look at him. He wasn’t pack, so I didn’t have a link with him. We stared at each other and I felt him reaching out for me, focusing I connected with him and squeezed his hand back.

“It’s not your fault, we have to go. There’s stuff going on back at the territory. I think we’ve overstayed our welcome anyway.” He looked to Ander before looking back to me. I felt the small lie he hid in it and it made my heart hurt.

“Promise me you’ll come back, promise me this isn’t because of what happened.” He looked at me then and worked his jaw.

“You got hurt. Lycan wounds scar, you’ll always have what we did to you on you.” He looked pained and I sat up, ignoring the slight ting of pain. Ander put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me back gently, standing and looking to Matt then. His blue eyes so close to going Amber. Matt didn’t get up, only looked at me.

“Don’t feel bad, I did what I did because I had to break you up.” I practically yelled at him, not moving anymore.

“You put yourself in danger because of me, who knows what could’ve happened. We were so ready to… We have to go Luna.” With that he slid his hand away from mine and looked up at Ander. In front of the small pack of kids he moved his head to the side, baring his neck and didn’t stand until Ander sat down.

“Bye Little Luna.” He said out loud before walking through his friends and leaving them to say goodbye to me.

 

**Present**

                I stared at the ground, gritting my teeth at the end of it. Ignoring the slight tingle of the scars on my back. I’d shut that part of my life out, not needing to be reminded that I couldn’t do anything right.

“He does get overly attached, doesn’t he?” Rhonda said quietly, looking at the ground too.

“We just knew you got hurt, not that he did it. We were kind of hoping that it had been Ander. Matt had hated him, we wanted to hate him too.”

“We were kids, Luna.” I shook my head and looked at Blake.

“No we weren’t. We knew what life was and we knew how it worked. Blake you were a beta before you could even walk. We all knew our places and… Matt and I just forgot. But I never got between them-“

“Hush, I’ll deal with my brother if Matt and Ander haven’t already. Hell I’ll deal with him even if they have.” Rhonda said, rising to sit on her haunches and looking directly at me.

“Hey, we’re back now. We’ve come to help you train them. Focus on the now and you should be fine. Besides, you’re mated. Matt is many things, but he’s not disrespectful. A mating is under the Goddess, he wouldn’t blatantly disrespect her. As long as you’re fully mated-“

“She’s not.”

“You’re not?” Rhonda looked at me then, her eyes big and round.

“Other stuff got in the way, we’ve done the biting.”

“But you’ve got your mark.”

“It’s not complete, we’re not a complete pair. We haven’t bonded under Mother Moon’s power.”

“Oh.”

“Fuck.” Blake hissed and ran her hair through her hair before fluffing it and looking at me.

“Well, this’ll be really interesting.

Chapter 30

 

 

                They managed to lure me out of my room, after my eyes were clear and my face wasn’t red anymore. I realized that I didn’t actually eat anything and was starving. Walking through the training room I was hesitant because all the lycans had moved from the cafeteria to the training ground and were